Airwaves

by Brian Goslow

For the next two weeks, Worcester's history is celebrated on The Worcester Heart Beats: 150 Years of Connecting History, People and Cultures, a series of six one-hour programs that air from February 10 through 19 on WCUW (91.3 FM). The idea for the program, which will be broadcast from 5 to 6 p.m., was spawned last summer when producer Dr. Stephen Soreff attended an ACCORD conference. "We were originally thinking about doing a program for the national humanities, then we found we could do more in conjunction with the city's 150th anniversary." A grant from the Worcester Cultural Commission helped fund the production. "We've been recording for the last two months with a lot of different people in town. Joe Cutroni [WCUW's station manager] has been marvelous in utilizing his audio and production skills."

The program's theme song, "Living in the Heart," was written and recorded by Worcester's Peter and Ellen Allard. "We were on [Soreff's] show, Shirim, a couple of months ago to preview our new CD, Sing Shalom: Songs for the Jewish Holidays [80Z Music]; and between songs, he invited us to record a song for the series," Peter Allard says. "It's an NPR-type of song bite for between segments. We contacted Cliff Goodwin, who's had a lot of experience with jingles and commercials, and recorded it at Bill Nelson's Big Deal Studio on Southbridge Street, where we record all of our stuff." Michael Allard added percussion, Duke Levine contributed his trademark guitar work, and Valerie and Walter Crockett sang the backing vocals.

Soreff says he plans to include additional work by the Allards, in particular, cuts from 1997's Raise the Children, which included material from the husband-and-wife team's pre-marriage solo albums.

Also included in the series will be music by Jack and Present Co., who recorded instrumental segments, and the Worcester Men of Song barbershop quartet, who provided "Worcester: My Home Town," written in the 1980s by Earl Byl and former Worcester mayor George Wells.

The February 12 segment, "The Arts: Poetry, Literature, Music, and Entertainment," will feature Assumption College professor and poet Michael True, author of Worcester Writers, who talks about the city's more-renowned authors; Tatnuck Bookseller owner Larry Abramoff, who reads Ernest Thayer's "Casey at the Bat"; and there's a segment on last summer's Forum Theatre production of West Side Story. "We have a rich literary and musical tradition where artists help out artists," Soreff says of the local arts community. "It's a warm community for a lot of the arts."

Other segments in the series include "Innovation" (airing on February 10), which covers "new things which came about because of Worcester, including Goddard's rocket, shredded wheat, and our loose history with the valentine"; "Women" (on February 11), which explores the city's ties with the early days of the women's movement and its major role in the underground railroad; "Diversity" (February 17), which celebrates the city's multicultural vibrancy; "Education and Health" (February 18), which explores "its long medical and collegiate history"; and "Youth and the Senior Citizens" (February 19), which attempts to tie all of the city's current inhabitants into one happy ball. "Worcester is third only to South Florida and Sun City, Arizona, as a place with an extraordinary amount of senior citizens -- for some reason, they choose to remain here," says Soreff, who brought the city's generations together to talk about their hometown. "They're united in their love for the city and its feeling of home."